The exact dates of the 2006 lunar year
The Fire Dog year ran from January 29, 2006 to February 17, 2007. Those 385 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap seventh month was inserted: 2006 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 2006 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2005 one, January 29, 2006 against February 9, 2005. Why the 2006 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Dog pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2006 is Bing and the branch is the Dog, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2006 that branch is taken to mean someone loyal and principled, with a low tolerance for anything that looks unfair. Fire, the element attached to 2006, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
2006 is a yang year, the outward half of the Fire pair: 2007 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2006 is described as the dog temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 2006
From 1 January 2006 to January 28, 2006 the animal in force was still the Rooster, not the Dog — 28 days of 2006 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2006 is a Rooster.
The first Dog of 2006 is anyone born on January 29, 2006 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 17, 2007. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 29, 2006 is at the early end.
Where 2006 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2006 is position 23 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Bing stem against the Dog branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Dog year was 1946 and the next is 2066.
Someone born in 1946 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2006, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2006 meets the pairing again in 2066.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Dog of 2006 is grouped with the Tiger and the Horse, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2002 and 2010. Its opposition is the Dragon, six years on from 2006 in 2012.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2006 was measured to produce them; 2006 stands four years from 2002 and six from 2012, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2006
Because the 2006 lunar year opened on January 29, 2006, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 17, 2007, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2006 stays the Dog.
Handbooks equate the Dog of 2006 with Libra, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2006 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2006 Fire Dog as a year-long version of Libra flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2006 Chinese new year start?
January 29, 2006, and the year ran on to February 17, 2007 — 385 days.
What animal is 2006?
The Dog, in its Fire form, from January 29, 2006 onward; a birth earlier in 2006 is a Rooster.
Was 2006 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap seventh month made 2006 thirteen months and 385 days long.
I was born in January 2006 — which animal am I?
The Rooster, unless you were born on January 29, 2006 or later, which is when the 2006 year began.